If you consider yourself an out-of-the-box thinker, here’s a question for you: If you were designing a server specifically for virtualization, what would it look like?

That’s the question HP faced when it set out to create a virtualization server, a new ProLiant server blade designed to make it easy to create and administer virtual servers. Some of the answers came from unexpected places.

First, the obvious
It was clear that such a blade—christened the HP ProLiant BL495c virtualization blade—should be built on a fast, multi-processor platform. It should boot quickly, but conserve power—a perfect fit for a solid-state drive that is quickly available but uses just two watts.

But the more feedback HP got from early virtualization adopters, the clearer it became that many of the bottlenecks they experienced had more to do with memory speed and capacity. So the BL495c comes with 16 memory slots for a capacity of up to 128 gigabytes, twice that of Dell’s m605 and IBM’s LS21, and four times more than IBM’s HS21. It also sports fast memory, and is the only server blade from a major vendor to support faster memory and boost data throughput with dual AMD HyperTransport links.

Works well with others
Equally important is the ability to network with other servers and devices, because efficient use of resources—many of them located elsewhere—is a big part of virtualization’s payoff. So the BL495c is well-connected, sporting up to eight Ethernet network connections per blade with full hardware performance, two more connections than IBM’s LS21 and Dell’s m605. And of course, since so many companies are keeping track of their cost per virtual machine, the ideal virtualization server would give them big bang for the buck for each virtual server license by supporting more virtual servers per blade. That’s why the BL495c has increased the number of virtual machines supported per hypervisor license with more memory per core than any other server blade. So for companies that follow the standard rule of thumb of 4GB per virtual server, the BL495c can support up to 512 virtual machines per enclosure, more than twice that of major competing servers. When combined with reduced SAN connection costs due to consolidating Fibre Channel equipment, it’s possible to save up to $464 per blade when compared to the Dell m605 and $4,338 when compared to the IBM LS21. In tight times, these savings could help companies meet tough objectives and tight budgets.

Beyond power: Managing more efficiently
But savvy managers know that containing costs means focusing on more than just the purchase price. It means configuring, changing and managing servers as efficiently as possible. That’s why the BL495c sports built-in iVirtualization, technologies that integrate virtualization capabilities into the HP ProLiant server platform. iVirtualization, which works in popular environments such as VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer, eliminates many tedious setup tasks, freeing administrators for more important work.

All of these features add up to a virtualization blade server that provides a cost-efficient, easily managed way to make servers—and the businesses they support—more productive. To find out more about using virtualization to get the most out of your company’s resources, check out these recently introduced servers, services and storage products.